Things seem to be rolling nicely for this young Swedish metal band. After a solid debut CD ‘The hunter’ in 2000, Persuader entered themselves in the “Young Metal Gods” competition and ultimately were victorious in their venture. Most importantly, people started to pay attention to this young band and expectations grew for their 2nd CD. Persuader did not disappoint with ‘Evolution purgatory’ in 2004. It was a huge jump from ‘The hunter’ in terms of sound and production. ‘Evolution purgatory’ was an in your face non-stop brutal slice of thrash power metal, which got my #2 spot for the best metal CD of 2004. The band also had a new guitarist for this CD, Emil Norberg (younger brother of Nocturnal Rites’ guitarist Nils Norberg).

Persuader had now gained the attention of the metal public and key metal figures in Europe and soon changed labels from Noise Records to the newly founded Dockyard 1, spearheaded by Iron Savior’s vocalist Piet Sielck. Later, both Norberg and Jens Carlsson (Persuader’s vocalist) were invited to Piet’s new metal venture, Savage Circus and their debut CD ‘Dreamland manor’, which was highly praised. Persuader had also added a 2nd guitarist, Daniel Sundborn to their line-up.

Now this has brought us to Persuader’s 3rd CD, ‘When Eden burns’. The important, make or break 3rd CD, which has seen bands shot into metal stardom or fall from grace. Again, Persuader has not disappointed us, with another brutal dose of bombardic power/thrash metal. Jen’s vocals are again similar to those of Blind Guardian’s vocalist Hansi Kursh, but with much more aggression. His voice changes wonderfully from dark aggression to melodic harmony without missing a beat. The thrash influence is still in their sound, but maybe down a notch from their previous CD.

Persuader are quite a unique and fresh sounding metal band, as they have all these different influences within their sound, and their songwriting is constantly changing. The song structure varies dramatically with every track, which adds to the freshness of this young band. All this in unison with Jen’s aggressive, harsh and also melodic vocals. The production is again top notch from their previous CD, with an overall rawness to it. That also adds to the uniqueness of Persuader. All 3 of their CDs have this raw element to them, which makes them stand out against others. The 2 bands which I can hear similarities to, are early Blind Guardian and another young metal band, Hibria. Hibria play more 80s style heavy metal, but have the same rawness and bombastic edge in the music.

As for the songs on ‘When Eden burns’, they all are very good, and it’s a consistent CD with no fillers whatsoever. The CD has one instrumental track “Zion”. But for me, the standouts would include the great riffs and drum pounding of the title track, the fast and thrashy “Judas immortal”, the brilliant “Doomsday news” and the perfect CD closer, “Enter reality”.

My only gripe (yet it be a small one), which doesn’t affect my opinion of this CD, is the sound of the drums. I feel that it has been tweaked down a little and doesn’t give you the full affect of its thundering, pounding sound. I feel that producer Piet Sielck wanted the guitars and vocals to stand out more over the drumming, which is understandable. The end result matter not as ‘When Eden burns’ is another success for Persuader and another step towards metal stardom.

This young band is on the verge of something great and could lead the way of the new young generation of power metal bands in Europe. I sense that Persuader are on the same path as Edguy, back when they released their first 3 CDs, which shot them into stardom. Persuader’s 4th CD, and the future success of Savage Circus will now be monitored very closely and expectations will be very high.